Anthropic PBC raised $65 billion in a funding round that valued the artificial intelligence company at $965 billion including the new investment, eclipsing rival OpenAI’s value for the first time.
The funding, announced Thursday, was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital. Other investors included D.E. Shaw & Co,. Blackstone Inc. and DST Global.
The large round came together in a matter of weeks, a sign of strong investor demand for the Claude maker. In late April, Anthropic had been weighing whether to pursue new financing at a more than $900 billion valuation after receiving several inbound proposals, Bloomberg News then reported.
The artificial intelligence startup then kicked off advanced discussions earlier this month.
Founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees, Anthropic has since emerged as a leader in the AI sector. Anthropic has developed a series of AI tools aimed at overhauling the way businesses handle tasks from coding to cybersecurity. Anthropic and OpenAI are both expected to go public as soon as this fall.
Anthropic expects to post $10.9 billion in revenue for the second quarter, more than doubling from the prior three-month period as demand surges for its AI software. The company is also on pace for its first profitable quarter.
The company has told investors that its annualized run rate revenue will surpass $50 billion by the end of next month, people familiar with the matter said. Anthropic’s run rate, a metric that projects full-year revenue based on sales from a shorter period, was $4 billion in July of last year.
OpenAI was most recently valued at $852 billion in a funding round completed in March. The company is expected to confidentially file draft paperwork to go public in the coming days or weeks.
 Follow the MoneyCentral Nigeria channel on WhatsApp: Click here!
